GitLab 8.17.4, 8.16.8, and 8.15.8 released

Today we are releasing versions 8.17.4, 8.16.8, and 8.15.8 for GitLab Community Edition (CE) and Enterprise Edition (EE).

These versions contain several security fixes, including an important security fix for a critical information disclosure vulnerability, protection against Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) attacks, a fix for some links vulnerable to tabnabbing, a fix for a flaw that could leak private email addresses in Atom feeds, and a fix for private repository data leakage into ElasticSearch (EE-specific). We strongly recommend that all affected GitLab installations be upgraded to one of these versions immediately.

Please read on for more details.

Information Disclosure in Issue and Merge Request Trackers

During an internal code review a critical vulnerability in the GitLab Issue and Merge Request trackers was discovered. This vulnerability could allow a user with access to assign ownership of an issue or merge request to another user to disclose that user's private token, email token, email address, and encrypted OTP secret. Reporter-level access to a GitLab project is required to exploit this flaw.

This vulnerability is the result of a bug in the serialization of a user object and was introduced in GitLab 8.7.0. Please see the issue for more details.

Versions affected

8.7.0 through 8.15.7

8.16.0 through 8.16.7

8.17.0 through 8.17.3

We strongly recommend that all installations running a version mentioned above be upgraded as soon as possible.

Post-Upgrade Steps

Due to the nature of this vulnerability it is possible that sensitive user tokens have been cached by proxies or web browsers. We therefore recommend that administrators reset private tokens and incoming email tokens for all users. A rake task for performing token resets is included with this announcement.

Encrypted One-Time Password (OTP) secrets may also have been leaked by the vulnerability. These secrets are encrypted, require the key for decrypting the secret, and cannot be used on their own without a copy of the user password, however we are still recommending that all users who utilize One-Time Passwords disable and then re-enable their 2FA for all GitLab instances. This will reset the OTP secret.

Rake Task for Resetting User Tokens

After upgrading we recommended that all GitLab installations reset all user private tokens and email tokens. To do so please save the following rake task in the appropriate location.

For Omnibus: /opt/gitlab/embedded/service/gitlab-rails/lib/tasks/reset_token.rake

Verifying the workaround

View the returned JSON and verify that no private information such as tokens are included

Other fixes in 8.17.4, 8.16.8, and 8.15.8

SSRF when importing a project from a Repo by URL

GitLab instances that have enabled project imports using "Repo by URL" were vulnerable to Server-Side Request Forgery attacks. By specifying a project import URL of localhost an attacker could target services that are bound to the local interface of the server. These services often do not require authentication. Depending on the service an attacker might be able craft an attack using the project import request URL.

This update blocks all import attempts from localhost and all bound server interfaces other than those assigned as GitLab web or SSH services (Typically ports 22 and 443). This update also blocks all import attempts from TCP ports below 1024 with the exception of ports 22, 80 and 443. 17286

Links in Environments tab vulnerable to tabnabbing

edio via HackerOne reported that user-configured Environment links include target=_blank but do not also include rel: noopener noreferrer. Anyone clicking on these links may therefore be subjected to tabnabbing attacks where a link back to the requesting page is maintained and can be manipulated by the target server.

This update also includes patches for several other locations that might be vulnerable. 29081

Accounts with email set to "Do not show on profile" have addresses exposed in public atom feed

Several GitLab users reported that even with "Do not show on profile" configured for their email addresses those addresses were still being leaked in Atom feeds if they commented on a public project. 28058

Upgrade barometer

These versions do not include any migrations and will not require downtime.

Please be aware that by default the Omnibus packages will stop, run migrations, and start again, no matter how “big” or “small” the upgrade is. This behavior can be changed by adding a /etc/gitlab/skip-auto-migrations file.